


This Is What Dean Wants

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Human Castiel, M/M, Romance, Schmoop, Tickle Fights, Tickling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 18:53:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1868658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dean Winchester is a tickler.</p><p>He can't help it. It's a bad habit borne of raising a brother four years younger than him. He used tickling as a way of making Sam laugh when nothing else could, of getting him to be distracted from bad behavior rather than reprimanding him, of making their family's immense burden of hunting seem a little lighter, if just for a moment."</p><p>***</p><p>Wherein the thread that brings Dean and Cas together, and which ties the loose ends of Dean's existential crisis, is a simple fondness for the art of tickling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is What Dean Wants

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: "I was think destined tickling. Cas has only seen it from heaven and usually it's done to children so when dean does it to him he gets really confused. And dean blushes and's like oh sorry man I was just....but cas is like I like this. So then they randomly have tickle fights which may or may not end in one of them strapped down and being tickled/explored until they come. Or however you want to write the story obviously I just like the idea of tickling."
> 
> Set in an alternate canon through seasons 7, 8, and 9 where Cas loses his grace slowly.

Dean Winchester is a tickler.

He can't help it. It's a bad habit borne of raising a brother four years younger than him. He used tickling as a way of making Sam laugh when nothing else could, of getting him to be distracted from bad behavior rather than reprimanding him, of making their family's immense burden of hunting seem a little lighter, if just for a moment.

But little Sammy is no longer little, and nowadays the dude has less than a single percent of body fat on him, so Dean eventually broke his habit of pinching Sam's tummy fat, and poking at his armpits, and waking him up by running his fingers up the bottoms of his small feet which dangled out of the covers.

Dean had stopped tickling Sam, because Sam had stopped laughing.

When Dean picks up his bad habit again years later, it comes as a surprise to both him and his victim, Cas.

Castiel, stodgy tax accountant angel of the Lord, Dean finds out, is _not_ ticklish.

The first time it happens, the three of them are standing in line at a food truck in Ann Arbor, having just started a hunt in an allegedly haunted hospital north of the city, and it's the dead of summer, sticky humid heat forcing Dean to wear just a white t-shirt and curse himself for not kicking on the A/C before they left the motel.

Even Cas tossed his trench coat and suit jacket in the trunk and rolled up his sleeves, a thin sheen of sweat over his forehead as he reads the menu on the side of the truck with the same confused look on his face that Dean gets when he's reading through ancient tomes of mostly irrelevant hunting information.

Dean's heart hurts to think of his angel like this, losing his grace, not all at once, but little by little, pieces and chunks of it chipping away, the monolith of his spirit slowly decaying into the throes of humanity.

Without thinking, Dean reaches out and pinches Cas's side lightly, right under his lowest rib.

Cas's brow furrows and he looks from the menu to Dean. "What was that?"

Dean's eyes widen as he realizes with horror that he just _tickled_ a goddamn angel of the Lord, to no avail, apparently, from what his unconscious mind was attempting to accomplish.

"It was... I tickled you, I guess," Dean replies, face flushing.

Sam looks between them and slumps his shoulders in exasperation, sighing.

Cas narrows his eyes and tilts his head. "Tickle?"

Dean chews on the inside of his cheek, trying to figure how the fuck to describe to a non-human the concept of _tickling_. "It's when you, like... hell, I dunno. It's just a thing." He looks to Sam, eyebrows raised, hoping Sam's fancy college vocabulary can help out.

Sam gives Dean the death glare and tells Cas, "It's an affectionate gesture from one person to another that usually involves physically stimulating the other person so that they laugh."

Dean drags his hand over his face and groans. "Thanks, Sammy. Thanks for that."

Cas tilts his head at Dean again. "You were trying to make me laugh."

Dean shrugs. "Well, yeah. I mean, you look kinda, I dunno, bummed out."

"I see," Cas says, looking back at the menu. "Thank you, Dean. I appreciate your attempts at bringing me levity."

***

A year or so later, Dean, Sam, and Cas are at a diner in Reno chasing a string of suspicious homicides. Cas is wearing Dean's favorite AC/DC shirt because the dude _refuses_ to buy his own clothes, stating he doesn't have any money, and Dean has a whole duffel bag of clothes he's not wearing, so it's really just more efficient.

It's bullshit, really.

Every day, Dean sees Cas becoming a more human-like person, no longer the great and terrifying being Dean had become accustomed to. Cas's humanness is both soothing and disconcerting, in much the way Sam's growing independence from Dean is both relieving and hurtful.

Sam is on his laptop across the table from Dean and Cas, researching the homicides. Cas looks over the menu, but Dean doesn't have to, because the last time he was at this diner, the bacon cheeseburger was too amazing to consider any other option.

The server approaches them to take their orders. "What can I get for you folks?" he asks, looking at the three of them.

Without looking up from his laptop, Sam orders a salad.

Dean smiles up at the man and orders his cheeseburger.

Cas looks over his menu for another moment.

Dean gets an inexplicable urge to reach under the table, hand hesitating beneath Cas's knee.

"I'll have the turkey sa– _AHH!"_ Cas exclaims, jumping sideways in the booth.

Dean stifles a smile, lifting his hand to Cas's side, hovering there in waiting.

"Excuse me," Cas continues to the server. "I'll have the turkey sa– _AHHHH_ – Dean, what are you _doing_?" he says in a loud whisper, covering his midsection and cowering in the corner of the booth.

Dean snorts a laugh and Sam looks up from his laptop, eyebrows raised at Dean. "Sorry, sorry, go ahead. My bad." He covers his mouth with his hand.

"I'll have the turkey sandwich," Cas tells the server, speeding through the sentence and still cowering against the window. "And fries."

The server, noticeably irked, writes it down and walks away.

As soon as Cas relaxes, he says, "Dean, what was tha– _STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!_ " He tries to push Dean away, but Dean has both hands on him, one on his side crawling up to his armpit and the other under his knee.

Cas jerks and yelps and flails at Dean's hands to get him to stop, and then finally, blissfully laughs, so loud and hard that people are staring at them, and Dean can see Cas's gums above his teeth. His eyes are squeezed shut, and he's making a delighted and pained squealing noise that is only made worse when Dean moves to his hip, lifts up the hem of his shirt and tickles the soft, warm flesh above his hipbone.

Dean has his tongue between his teeth as he masterfully and publicly takes Cas apart with his expert tickling methodology, honed and perfected over the span of decades.

Finally, Dean stops, grin plastered over his face, and Cas heaves, breathless, looking flustered and flushed and – Dean reluctantly admits to himself – a little bit adorable.

And – the realization hits him like brick – _a lotta bit_ sexy.

Sam looks at them in horror.

"Dean," Cas begins. "That was..."

 _"Hilarious?"_ Dean asks.

Cas furrows his brow. "That's not the word I would use."

Sam closes his laptop as his salad arrives, and tells them, "You're both fucking insane."

***

It finally happens.

After so many years, the bond of the Winchester brothers has just... broken.

The things Sam said, Dean recounts, he just can't take that shit back. How Dean is _selfish_ for not letting Sam die in the Trials. How Dean can't let anything go, how he holds on so tightly to everything he loves. How Dean would be so much easier to love in return if he could just have a _self_ for once in his damn life instead of living for every other inane reason he can come up with.

Dean doesn't get to have desires, though. He's Dean fucking Winchester. He's a hunter. He was put on this damn planet to be a soldier in the war for free will and nothing else. He is Sam's brother, John's son, Cas's best friend, and that's pretty much it. He doesn't _need_ anything else.

When he said as much to Sammy, Sam had replied, "But what do you _want_ , Dean?" then stormed out of the bunker, still weak and wounded.

Dean hasn't heard from him in weeks.

Cas stays with Dean, in the bunker, finally wearing his own damn clothes, and, Dean thinks, getting pretty good at this whole being-human business.

More importantly, Cas keeps his distance and lets Dean sulk. He buys them groceries and cooks them food and does their laundry. He doesn't speak unless Dean initiates conversation, and for that, Dean is grateful. He doesn't want to talk about it, his _feelings_ , because that's not what Dean Winchester does. Dean Winchester barrels through his problems and comes out the other side, victorious.

With Sammy gone, though, it's like swimming upstream. He's getting caught in the current of Sam's malicious words, drowning in the notion that maybe he really _doesn't_ have a self.

It never occurred to him that it was even an option.

Dean is in bed, reading Vonnegut's _Cat's Cradle_ for the umpteenth time, the old paperback creased at the spine, a majority of the pages dog-eared. Dean keeps a highlighter by his bed to note his favorite passages, so that when he inevitably reads it again, he can pay even closer attention to them.

He spots a line he can't remember highlighting, having been so long ago it was simply underlined crookedly with pencil, and so faded that he barely notices it.

_There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look._

Sighing, he closes the book, setting it on his bedside table.

Teenage Dean was such a fucking pansy.

There's a light knock on the door.

"Come in," Dean calls.

Cas opens the door, not meeting Dean's gaze, and walks in carrying a laundry basket with neatly folded clothes inside it. He sets it down by Dean's dresser drawers and turns to leave.

"Cas," Dean begins. "You don't have to do my laundry."

Finally, Cas looks at him. "I know." He shrugs, as though those two words and a gesture explain everything.

Dean doesn't know when Cas started slipping into using gestures to communicate, instead of too many words with too little tact, and it's not _un_ welcome, Dean thinks, but different. It reminds Dean that things are changing, that the simple idea of Castiel – centuries-old ex-celestial being – learning how to shrug means that anything can happen and that Dean has no idea where his life is headed.

In the comfortable silence, Dean asks himself for the millionth time in the past few weeks what he wants from life, separate from what everyone else wants from him.

Apparently, his face expresses as much, because Cas lies down on the bed next to Dean and they both stare at the ceiling together.

"Cas?" Dean asks.

"Hm?"

"What do you want out of life?"

Cas turns on his side, head propped up with his hand, and looks down at Dean. "Is that what this is about?"

Their faces are so close, Dean has to cross his eyes to see Cas clearly. Dean thought by now he would have gotten used to Cas's personal space issues, but he hasn't, and every time something like this happens, he gets a warm feeling in his chest.

He notices that Cas doesn't have personal space issues with anyone but Dean.

That idea also gives him a warm feeling in his chest.

"Is that what what is about?" Dean replies.

Cas shrugs again. "Moping. Reading Vonnegut's entire bibliography for what I'm guessing is the tenth time. Staring off into space constantly with this horrified look on your face. Wallowing."

"I am not _wallowing_ ," Dean scoffs, incredulous.

Cas pulls Sam's patented bitch-face and it makes Dean miss Sam even more. He sighs.

"You miss Sam," Cas infers.

Dean nods.

Bless Cas, Dean thinks, for not pushing the conversation or forcing him to gush out all his pathetic, teenage-girl _emotions_.

Although what Cas does instead is infinitely worse.

He reaches out and tickles Dean's stomach over his t-shirt, right under his rib cage, hard and sudden.

" _Agh_! Cas! Stop! No!" Dean giggles, high pitched and utterly fucking humiliating, but he doesn't have time to dwell on it because he's too busy trying to push Cas away.

When Cas sits up and adds his other hand to the fray, moving down to Dean's hips and up under his arms, Dean starts fighting back, tongue between his teeth, grabbing Cas by the sides and squeezing up under his bottom ribs.

Cas, as it turns out, is much more ticklish than Dean, because he immediately stops tickling him in favor of protecting himself, rolling on his back and half-laughing, half-screaming as he tries to push Dean away.

He's almost successful, and pushes Dean to the edge of the bed, but before Dean can fall off of it, he rolls on top of Cas, straddling his hips and attacking his neck and armpits, which makes Cas shrug into himself and squirm under Dean's weight.

"Stop it! _Dean_!" Cas whines.

Dean continues until Cas is red in the face. "Stop! No! Dean, _please_! I'll do anything! This is torture!" Cas scream-laughs, loud and happy.

Abruptly, Dean stops.

He suddenly gets it. He can't breathe. He feels like he got hit by a truck.

Dean knows what he wants.

And what he wants, _who_ he wants, is Cas.

He's always wanted Cas. From the moment Castiel gripped him tight and raised him from perdition, he knew somewhere in the back of his sad little mind that he and Cas were meant to be together. But it took a long, lonely road to get there, with Dean so focused on Sam, protecting him and caring for him and playing the role of the guardian that Sam doesn't apparently need anymore, to realize that Castiel is the one who needs him. The one who _wants_ him.

Castiel, who has taken care of Dean hand and foot these past few weeks without asking anything in return. Castiel, who lost his grace, his immortality, to stay by Dean's side. Castiel, who risked everything for Dean, and will always risk everything for Dean, no matter what Dean says or does to him. Castiel, who is panting, breathless beneath him, bright blue eyes shining up at him, like Dean is his entire world.

Dean finally understands. He wants Castiel. In every sense of the word.

"Cas..." Dean begins, inhaling the name like it's being breathed into his lungs to oxygenate the blood that will flow into his heart, and suddenly it's all just too much, watching Cas watch him, curious and open and accepting and full of adoration.

Dean caresses Cas's face and leans down, flicking his eyes from Cas's lips, barely parted, up to his eyes and then back down again, closing the distance between them and gently placing their lips together and loving the feel of Cas's soft mouth on his own, surprised gasp in his throat as he finally gets the picture and kisses back.

It's quick and chaste, and Dean pulls away, momentarily terrified that maybe he crossed a line, but Cas furrows his brow and growls out, "Dean..." before pulling Dean back down for another kiss, this one deeper, Cas's lips parting to invite Dean's tongue in, and it's sloppy and crude, deep and sweet, slow and satisfying, everything Dean didn't know until this very moment that he wanted.

Cas kisses like he does everything: perfectly.

Soon, Dean is squirming on top of him, dick half hard and tight in his jeans. The room is too hot and they're both wearing too many articles of clothing, so Dean reluctantly breaks away to sit up and pull his shirt over his head, then leans back so that Cas can sit up and Dean can pull his shirt off too. They've been apart for too many seconds so Dean tosses the shirt aside and leans back down over Castiel, feeling the warm skin of his chest against his own, heart pounding against his own, mouth panting against his own, Cas's fingers tangling in Dean's hair as they explore each other's bodies with their hands and lips and hearts. Dean works his way down Cas's jaw, nipping and sucking every patch of skin that he can, devouring Castiel and his affections, and reveling in the tiny, breathy whining noises he makes in Dean's ear.

This is what Dean wants.

Dean crawls down Cas's body, pressing open-mouthed kisses down his torso and pausing at a nipple to wrap his lips around it, flicking the other one with his thumb, and Cas hisses, arching his back off the bed while Dean smiles satisfyingly into his chest before moving on, down the distinct center line of Cas's abs and stopping at his hips, thin and angled, licking a stripe up one and then the other while Cas gasps.

He unbuttons Cas's jeans – which are actually Dean's jeans, sneaky bastard – and unzips his fly, sitting up to tug at the fabric while Cas lifts his hips in the air. He slides them off of Cas's legs in one fluid motion, tossing them aside, and then stops.

Dean takes a moment to let his eyes rove over Cas's body, lithe and muscular, smooth and pale, cock hard and leaking on his stomach.

Cas stares back at Dean, flushed and looking beautifully debauched, waiting with bated breath for Dean's next move.

This is what Dean wants.

Dean leans down and kisses at the soft skin around Cas's cock, running his hands up and down Cas's thighs and wondering if maybe they should slow down, if maybe Cas isn't ready for this.

As though Cas can read Dean's mind, he pleads, _"Dean..."_

That's all the assurance Dean needs before licking a soft stripe up the underside of Cas's dick, throbbing hard with a bead of cum at the top which Dean takes happily into his mouth along with the rest of him, circling his tongue around the head slowly.

This is what Dean wants.

Cas moans, loud, running his fingers through Dean's hair as Dean takes him the rest of the way in his mouth and bobs up and down, cheeks hollowing and pressing tight against the underside of Cas's cock, and he tastes so damn good, he feels so damn good under Dean's immense adulation that Dean could do this, just this, every minute of every day of the rest of his life, taking Cas apart and examining every intricate, complex piece of him only to put him back together into the beautiful, artistic masterpiece that he is.

This is what Dean wants.

Voice wrecked, Cas rubs his hands over Dean's shoulders and says, "Dean, _please._ Come with me, Dean."

Dean obliges, lifting himself up and crawling back over Cas's body, hot and hard and perfect, and Dean kisses him again, deep and slow. Cas moans at the taste of himself on Dean's tongue, and Dean unbuttons his own jeans to slip them off along with his boxers, breaking away momentarily only to find Cas's mouth again and slide their dicks together, slick with cum and saliva. He pushes them together and Cas makes some truly sinful noises that make Dean's cock throb and ache, arms around Dean's shoulders pressing them close together while Dean rolls his hips against him. He takes both their dicks together in his hand and Cas shudders his hips into Dean's fist, erratic and groaning. Their mouths are together but not kissing, just breathing, moaning, gasping as Dean pumps them in his hand.

This is what Dean wants.

Dean can feel Cas's body tense up underneath him, his moans becoming short, stopped breaths, and finally he holds his breath for a moment before pulling away from Dean, eyes squeezed shut and coming with a shout, body shuddering.

Watching Cas unravel beneath him pushes Dean over the edge, fist slick with Cas's come as he rocks quickly into it, and comes with stopped breath, exhaling as his orgasm is pulled from his body, coating his fist with cum and slumping over onto Cas with a huff.

He rolls off of Cas, and Cas reaches over the side of the bed and picks up his jeans – which are really Dean's jeans – to clean them both up and toss them aside again.

Cas nudges his head under Dean's arm to rest it on Dean's chest. Dean, in turn, wraps his arms around Cas and kisses the top of his head.

They catch their breaths after several moments, and Cas says, "This."

"This what?"

"This is what I want out of life," he concludes. "You, Dean. Just... you."

Dean grins and closes his eyes, squeezing Cas closer to him.

This is what Dean wants.

They lie together for a long time in blissful, happy silence, and Dean starts to doze off.

Until Cas lifts his arm off of Dean and brings his hand to his ribcage, tickling his side by pinching the skin there, sensitive flesh under his dancing fingers.

 _"Holy shi–"_ Dean bolts away and jumps out of his skin and also off the bed.

Cas rolls onto his side, cackling, and clutches at his stomach, eyes squeezed shut.

"What the _fuck_ , Cas?! You can't tickle a dude after an orgasm!" Dean exclaims from the floor, blankets pooled around his legs. "That's like a fundamental rule of sex!"

Cas remains in his fit of uproarious laughter.

Dean stands, knees still wobbly and weak, and throws the covers back on the bed along with himself, tickle-attacking Cas until Cas is screaming, "OH GOD! THIS IS HELL! STOP, _DEAN_ , STOP! PLEASE! I CAN'T."

Dean finally relents, lying back and dragging Cas into his embrace, who is curled on his side, panting, and facing away from Dean.

"See? Tickling is good all the time always except for after sex."

"Thank you, Dean," Cas replies, breathless. "I know that now."

"But this..." Dean slowly slides his fingertips lightly down Cas's spine and Cas melts into the bed, shivering. "This is okay."

He runs his hand back up Cas's side, barely grazing his skin, fingernails trailing behind his touch. Goosebumps spread across Cas's shoulders as he rakes over them gently, and Cas lets out a deep, quiet groan.

After several minutes, Cas's breathing deepens and evens out, and Dean wraps his arms around Cas, pressing a small kiss to the back of Cas's neck, breathing him in, letting himself fall in a way he never has before, and in a way he doesn't think he ever will with anyone else.

This is what Dean wants.


End file.
